4 Places Where the System Broke Down

(6 of 7)

As flames blazed 400 miles away in New Orleans on Labor Day, about 600 fire fighters from across the nation sat in an Atlanta hotel listening to a FEMA lecture on equal opportunity, sexual harassment and customer service. "Your job is going to be community relations," a FEMA official told them, according to Joe Calhoun, an assistant fire chief from Portage, Ind., who was there. "You'll be passing out FEMA pamphlets and our phone number."

The room, filled with many fire fighters who, at FEMA's request had arrived equipped with rescue gear, erupted in anger. "This is ridiculous," one yelled back. "Our fire departments and mayors sent us down here to save people, and you've got us doing this?" The FEMA official climbed atop a chair, Calhoun says, and tried to restore order. "You are now employees of FEMA, and you will follow orders and do what you're told," he said, sounding more like the leader of an invading army than a rescue squad.

The scene in Atlanta was one of the many ways FEMA failed to live up to Katrina's challenge. First, despite being warned by multiple hurricane experts that Katrina would be a catastrophic hurricane, Brown waited until about five hours after the storm's landfall before he proposed sending 1,000 federal workers to deal with the aftermath. While people were dying in New Orleans, the U.S.S. Bataan steamed offshore, its six operating rooms, beds for 600 patients and most of its 1,200 sailors idle. Foreign nations--responding to urgent calls from Washington--readied rescue supplies, then were told to stand by for days until FEMA could figure out what to do with them. Florida airboaters complained that they had an armada ready for rescue work but FEMA wouldn't let them into New Orleans. Brown defended his agency's measured steps, saying aid "has to be coordinated in such a way that it's used most effectively."

Just when things seemed to be stabilizing, another FEMA fiasco would light up the news wires. Last Thursday, as the Red Cross began distributing its own debit cards, thousands stood for hours in the 93° heat outside the Astrodome in Houston for FEMA cards that never came. A day earlier, Brown had heralded his agency's cards as a way to "empower" survivors "to start rebuilding their lives." But the agency scrapped the plan late Thursday, saying it would be more efficient for the government to deposit funds directly into evacuees' bank accounts.

For many disaster experts, FEMA's feeble response, just like the massive hurricane that triggered it, was woefully predictable. President Bush began emasculating the agency soon after taking office. Jane Bullock, a 22-year FEMA veteran who ended up as the agency's chief of staff during the Clinton Administration, says she sensed the incoming Administration's disdain during her first postelection meeting with members of Bush's FEMA transition team. "They said we had done a good p.r. job," she recalls. "I got the impression they had no idea what has to happen to deal with a disaster." Joe Allbaugh, Bush's first FEMA chief, labeled federal disaster aid "an oversized entitlement program" four months before 9/11.

A parking lot for political allies since its creation in 1979, FEMA had improved under the stewardship of Witt during the Clinton years. Staffed by disaster experts, it won bipartisan praise. Even Bush lauded Witt during a debate with Al Gore in 2000 for FEMA's skill at coordinating the resources Washington can bring to a disaster zone when adversity overwhelms local efforts.

But the agency's highest ranks began to fill with political chums again once Bush took over. Brown and FEMA's other two top officials have ties to Bush's 2000 campaign or to the White House's advance office, whose primary mission is making the President look good. None had disaster experience. TIME.com reported last week that Brown appears to have padded his own résumé by, among other things, claiming to have been a manager of emergency services in Edmond, Okla., when he was actually "more of an intern," according to a city official.

FEMA's identity complex worsened after 9/11, when the newly created DHS swallowed it whole. Two months ago, DHS chief Michael Chertoff proposed that FEMA only respond to disasters, not prepare for them. State officials have complained that FEMA is neglecting natural disasters in favor of terrorism. Nearly 75¢ of every dollar that the Federal Government has given to local and state disaster units has been earmarked for terrorism.

In the Gulf last week, some of FEMA's bumbling could have been an attempt to compensate for its haste last year after Hurricane Frances struck Florida. The agency ran afoul of federal auditors after it paid $31 million to residents of Miami-Dade, which was 100 miles south of the hurricane's eye.

Now there are calls from Capitol Hill to return FEMA to the Cabinet as an independent agency. There are also calls for Brown's head. On Friday the Administration sent Brown back to D.C. and announced that Coast Guard Vice Admiral Thad Allen would take over the recovery effort. But, warns Bullock, the problem is bigger than Brown. "The system is broken, and firing Mike Brown is not going to fix it."

Back in Atlanta, Joe Calhoun and other fire fighters got tired of hanging around their hotel and returned home. --By Mark Thompson / Washington